Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Who Are These Guys?

I’m now starting the long, slow process of sorting, tagging, and logically filing all the material I’ve found on that wonderful two weeks of visiting family, dead and alive. I’ve brought home bags and folders loaded with memorabilia, notes, photos, and other odds and ends—even a tax payment log.

Lts. Manning, Ruhe, Stover, Francona, and Sanborn

In the midst of all that was a photo of people whose names I definitely don’t recognize.

“Why do you want that photo?” my husband asked. Keeping in mind my struggle to identify unnamed faces in pictures the family does have, and coupling that with my deep desire to have some visual keepsake of at least the recent ancestors, I hated to toss the photo. That could be the picture someone else is looking for.

And so, I begin looking for the people looking for the photo.

Here’s my first try at serving as midwife for someone else’s line: a photo labeled “Army Staff—Camp Mountain 1935.” Thankfully, the back of the photo lists five names, clearly written. All have the designation, “Lt.” Some carry more detail than others.

Here are the men whose families I am now looking for: Manning, Harry Ruhe C.O., Bill Stover, Anthony Francona – Med. Officer, and Sanborn. Not much detail, but I give what I got.

It’s hard to see in the copy of the photo, but the original shows, written in white as a footer, the legend

Camp Mountain, Mountain, Wis.

C.C.

Co. 3643

The “C.C.” may actually be “C.C.C.” The white ink blends into the background so thoroughly that I think I may be imagining that, except that there is the faintest period before the first “C” that I can see. (This is beginning to sound like a tongue twister or nursery jingle.)

All I know of the photo is that Mountain, Wisconsin, is roughly northwest of Green Bay, Wisconsin, in Oconto County. The photo came from the belongings of Agnes Tully Stevens, whose son Frank enlisted in the Navy (and who may have had another son in the Army for a short while).

So, for what it’s worth, here’s the photo. Hopefully, someone will be blessed with a Google search result that leads to this picture. If you are one of those family members, the photo is yours to copy with my blessings.

And somewhere, in the great universe of reciprocated good deeds, I hope someone will be able to return the favor. I have a lot of pictures of nameless people who deserve some identification.

@ Intense Guy: thanks so much for posting the links and clues for these guys. Based on that info, I've put out a few more emails. Here's hoping some family comes calling. I'd love for them to have a copy of the photo if they'd like it! I've already found a daughter of Anthony Francona. Appreciate all your sleuthing! The rootsweb link and article were interesting!

About Me

It is my contention that, after a lifetime, one of the greatest needs people have is to be remembered. They want to know: have I made a difference?
I write because I can't keep for myself the gifts others have entrusted to me. Through what I've already been given--though not forgetting those to whom I must pass this along--from family I receive my heritage; through family I leave a legacy. With family I weave a tapestry. These are my strands.